Maurice, in person. OOCly, because that's the way we can earn level-ups on Hephaestus (discussed with PW in IRC back then), and ICly, because he's just that type of person. He's probably going to work in his Apocalypse lab in person as well, with the respect to necessary safety measures, of course.
Furthermore, I'd consider MMI-ing a science team and having their remotes go along... but now I remember that crossing the boundary to a pocket universe is possibly the only currently conceivable way to stop QEC-transmission (and even then it is unknown whether going in and out forever destabilises the synchronicity of QE, so in and out of itself it'd be an interesting experiment) so I am torn on the question of endangering the scientists by taking them in the flesh as well.
Also, we'd probably benefit from taking a number of sods with us, but for the reasons mentioned above they'll probably have to be delegated to Maurice. Because we don't know what we can encounter on the other side, from the experience of M6. Maybe give your PEWPEW assaultsuit a field run, or would it even fit through the rift (in M6, it probably wouldn't)?
And finally, the part I am struggling with the most, is what equipment we should take. A wide variety of sensors and scanners, probably, but what else? Because while exploration of such a place is promising (from the all the advancements the alien sand gave us), what I am
really interested in is the nature of such rifts, with the intent of being able to replicate them in the aforementioned Apocalypse Lab. ((What? I said it's better be constructed somewhere far away from Hephaestus, just in case, because there's always a chance of slight scientific mistake
))